May 2008

Too Frickin’ Cool

Now for an exciting round of what I call “too frickin’ cool.” The way this is played is that you describe some technology that is so futuristic, so Star Trekish, you can hardly believe that you are using it. When you are done describing this technology, you must be so impressed with your own story that you pause and punctuate it be saying, “Too frickin’ cool.” Optionally, you can add a “dude” or a “seriously” to further elaborate your point.

I’ll get the ball rolling. Yesterday I signed up for Google’s free service, Google Alerts. It sends me an e-mail any time my keywords newly appear on the Internet. My keywords are “Scott Adams Dilbert.” Now, I usually have my Blackberry 8700 in my pocket. So check this out…

Any time that 11-year old Vijay sits at his Dad’s computer in Lucknow, India, and blogs about his favorite Dilbert comic, Google finds it, and sends that link directly to my left front pocket. I reach in, pull out the Blackberry, click the link, and Vijay’s blog opens. I read it, just to see what little Vijay thinks of me today. In India. Minutes ago.

Now reverse it. From Vijay’s perspective, he’s writing about his favorite cartoonist who lives on the other side of the world. As soon as Vijay presses the “publish” button for his blog, it sets in motion a chain of events that ends with his words delivered to that author’s left front pocket. And in all likelihood, that author will read those words while his wife is scrolling up and down through the DVR’s online guide in some sort of shopper’s trance.

Seriously. Dude. How frickin’ cool is that?

Your turn. But you must limit your story to technology you personally use.

Okay, I get up in the morning, put on my shorts and running shoes, and strap a small device that LOOKS like a watch to my wrist. I go outside, and in a couple of minutes the device locks onto GPS satellites. Then I can go for my run, and the watch will tell me my current pace, elapsed time, and distance covered, as well as elevation changes, and whether I am ahead of or behind my planned pace.

Then I can boot up my iMac and tell you more than you would ever want to know about it...

Dude, why do you holster your mobile device to your left pockets? Mobile devices are supposed to be held in ones right pocket? Or are you a lefty (If so, is it true that being left handed is a cause of brain dysfunction)?

In New Zealand you can order subway with a text message. Just type a big long string of characters representing what you want and send it to your local branch.

You then wait five minutes, walk into the shop, past that big queue of 20 people and straight up to the counter where they give you your sandwich. You pay and then walk out again back past the 20 schmucks who stood in line.

I can manipulate irrational numbers. People were stoned to death for suggesting they exist. I can manipulate non-Euclidean geometries. People spend millenia trying to prove they don't exist. I can draw fractals and space-filling curves in seconds by computer. Even the open-minded guys 100 years ago felt the world was at an end when Weirstrauss drew the first everywhere continuous, nowhere differentiable function.

Okay, nobody outside math would appreciate that. So, look up a fractal zoom video on YouTube, and try to imagine drawing that with a ruler and compass. Yeah. Pretty fricken cool.

I work at Shaw cable probably the second largest cable company in Canada. There's is so much technology here that it blows my mind sometimes.

With all that said - it's a program that was made in the 80's that makes me say: “too frickin’ cool.” Using this program we can shut off and control certain aspects of the cust cable box - even control what the customer can watch - if we want. No that pretty frickin' cool.

'Acoustics' I’ve understood this term quite late … all the while I was thinking acoustics is a design to enable clear transmission of sound … now that could be a problem

In the new office that we have moved, acoustics has done the damage … I mean the architect has been excellent … to a level more than required for such a building. The kind of acoustics that this building is equipped with is designed for Space shuttles, Echo chambers etc.

Recently I’ve had a meeting in one corner of the office …. The acoustics are so excellent that everyone on the floor has heard all what was discussed. In-fact if you would want to call the whole floor for a meeting… its easier to go to the conference room and call aloud … mails n phones are things from the past.

Forecasting this … I suggest that the management provides all the associates with Ear plugs and makes in compulsory for everyone to wear it all day at work so that you don’t listed to something that you are not supposed to hear. Only when you are authorised by the management can one remove the earplugs and listen what happening.

While perusing one of the many infosnippets which arrived in my RSS aggregator the other day I ran across something so fantastically cool I just had to share it.

I grew up in the 70's and 80's and like so many other good little geeklings at the time I must have seen the original Star Wars at least thirty or forty thousand times. At least. Any stick I happened across (broomsticks, twigs, my brother's clarinet) morphed in my hands and I became a light saber wielding Jedi Knight like 'ol "Obi Wan" and Luke and, yes, even Darth. I wanted one so bad my hair hurt.

Fast forward to today. The new Apple Macbooks have a motion sensor in them which is used to detect when the laptop is moved for any number of really strange reasons. Seriously, I've had a laptop for many many years and can't remember even one time saying to myself, "gee, I wish my laptop knew it was moving", but I digress.

Anyway, someone finally figured out a truly useful purpose for that motion sensor and wrote an application which mimics the sounds those totally awesome light sabers made whenever your laptop is moved! Now I can wave my Light Saber, uh I mean laptop, around and pretend to be battling the forces of the dark side WHILE I'm reading the infosnippets which constantly harass my RSS reader!

While I realize that withdrawing money from your bank account through any one of a gazillion machines located practically everywhere in the civilized world at almost any time of day doesn't seem all that special nowadays, my career in banking started almost 30 years ago. When there were no ATMs.

The only way to get your cash back then was to show up at a bank branch sometime between 9am and 3pm, Monday through Friday, to cash your paycheck. (This was before we created direct deposit as well) Otherwise, if you needed money, you were S-O-L.

I was there and played a small part in a major change in the way society operates. I think that's pretty freakin' cool.

I jus love my wireless internet through my cell phone(though dialup n bit slow), but still it cool...like browsing web pages anywhere I go in the state from any remote place - provided that you gotta have some signal-bars in cell.

My story is kinda strange. I received an unexpected email from Germany late last year. The writer had discovered something I had written 7 years ago , and put on an old blog about 3 years ago, describing my visit to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. I was twenty at the time, and the visit opened a world of horror to me that I had not previously known. As I look back now, the story I wrote and forgot about seems melodramatic, but the email message I received in return was something else. It really got me how something lost so long ago could be found, and come back to me.

Back then records were expensive, so I dreamt of
a pair of golden records that would magically change
to play any tune I want.

The years went and mp3 arrived.

Then over 10 years later somebody invented groove timecode records which contain only timecode messages. You connect the turntable to the laptop soundcard and this to the hifi. Select the song on the laptop, put the needle on the record and the magic disc plays this song. You can scratch, play the record backwards, speed it up, slow it down, anything. It behaves like that magic golden disc from my dreams with the only exception of not beeing gold.

I'm absolutely mad about a technology called Holosync (www.centerpointe.com). It mechanically puts your brain into the frequencies meditating monks hit (without the years of sitting on the floor like a pretzel). Doesn't even matter if you can't keep from thinking. All the mental and physical health bennies without the frustration. How frickin' cool is that!?!?

Edit: Find.
I don't have to scan documents, or webpages; the computer does it for me.
I've got a new Portable Media Player that I can download tv, movies, music and photos to with 30Gigs. I can watch a movie while it downloads a show I'm missing on tv and I can watch it the next day on the train. And if it's really good, I can send it back to my tv and watch it on the big screen (ok, I've only got 27", but you get the picture) Too frickin' cool.